


learning to say hello

by odoridango



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash If You Squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 04:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5814352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odoridango/pseuds/odoridango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa gets an unexpected spectator at a university game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	learning to say hello

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr fic meme, with the prompt, "sharing a drink". It's a little clumsy, but I like it. orz Oikawa one day I'll know how to write you

Playing volleyball in university was much more than Oikawa ever imagined. For so long he had wanted to grind Shiratorizawa and Ushiwaka-chan under his heel, look down from his lofty position as Miyagi champion and cackle at the forlorn faces of Tobio-chan and his shrimpy partner. But Miyagi was just one part of the country, Miyagi was just the beginning, and Tokyo beckoned with its sprawling metropolis and neon-drenched, smoke-wreathed nights. Meticulous as he was, it wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of taking Aobajousai to championships, to facing schools from Kantou, Kyushu, all the other parts of Japan he might never see or visit. But the immediate goals had occupied his thoughts, and in university he encountered an entire roster of players he had only ever heard about in passing. 

However, he had not expected that his favoritest of all favorite kouhai would know about them too.

Oikawa scowled, and from the stands, Kageyama scowled back from his seat next to Iwaizumi, who was frowning a bit himself.

“Oya, what do we have here?” jeered Kuroo, who sauntered over and slung a heavy arm around Oikawa’s shoulders. He looked up into the stands and waved a little, and Kageyama blinked rapidly, raising his hand and wiggling his fingers back vaguely, as if unsure whether or not waving was normal greeting protocol. 

“It was _you_ ,” OIkawa hissed. 

“Heeeeey Kageyan!” Kuroo shouted blithely. “Nice to see you could make it!”

“Th-Thanks for inviting me!” came the unexpectedly loud, stuttering reply, as Kageyama bowed quickly in his seat. His face quickly settled into its typical sourness. “But don’t call me that!” 

Kuroo just laughed, loud and obnoxious, right next to Oikawa’s ear. “Well good thing I did, this guy seems to know you!” He gave Oikawa’s back a hefty smack, and Kuroo’s eyes gleamed with the prospect of new information. 

“Aobajousai is still one of our rival schools,” Kageyama said, “And Oikawa-san was my senpai in middle school.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” Kuroo hummed.

“No it isn’t, it isn’t at all,” Oikawa retorted, pouting. Giving one last glance to the stands, where Iwaizumi had drawn Kageyama back into conversation, he spun around and pushed Kuroo towards the court, ignoring his annoying middle blocker’s attempts to be as deadweight as possible. “It’s time to warm-up, warm-up!”

Even if Tobio-chan was here, he wasn’t the one Oikawa would be facing across the net. For the next half hour, for the next forty-five minutes, for however long the match would take - Tobio-chan was irrelevant. As Oikawa spun the ball between his fingertips and prepared for the first serve, a second year in university on his way to being a _grown-ass man_ , that was what he reminded himself. His world was larger now. There was no need to linger.

And that was what he told himself again, over and over, when Iwaizumi and Kageyama were invited to go the post-game celebration with the team.

“Congratulations,” Iwaizumi said with his boyish grin, still a little pumped from the momentum of the match. They swayed gently with the subway car as it made a shallow turn in the tunnels. “This means you’re in finals, doesn’t it?”

“Just like you, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa replied, with a little smug sniff and straightening of the shoulders. “I’m expecting you to win intramurals you know? I’d expect nothing less from a former ace.”

“Like my team would lose,” Iwaizumi snorted. “It’s totally different being a captain of a team like that - sometimes I still wonder how you managed in high school.”

Unable to help himself, Oikawa glanced at Kageyama, where he was standing several feet away, somehow managing to wrangle a conversation with Kuroo. How had they managed to meet? They clearly knew each other.

“…mostly I guess I didn’t feel like I could afford to fail,” Oikawa admitted quietly. This much he could do now. 

Iwaizumi punched him lightly in the side. “You were a great captain. You unified the team. You were one of Tohoku’s top setters in our graduating year. Considering that, I think you did a great job.”

“Iwa-chan….”

“Save the tears for now, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi said. “Neither of us are drunk enough yet.”

The izakaya was bustling by the time they had all trundled through the front door, heading for the reserved tables that had been pushed together in the corner. 

Kuroo made a small whoop, and looped his arms through Kageyama’s and Oikawa’s arms. “Gentlemen,” he announced dramatically. “It is time for us to rekindle our friendship. And in the way of men, this means we must drink.”

“Noooo, you dastardly betrayer, I haven’t forgiven you!” Oikawa wailed, straining for Iwaizumi behind him. “Iwa-chan, help!”

“No.”

“I can’t drink yet,” Kageyama offered unhelpfully. 

“Kageyan, have Bokuto and I taught you nothing?!”

“To never let you two have jello shots,” Kageyama replied promptly, grimacing. “Even Hinata doesn’t projectile vomit.”

Iwaizumi frowned as they shuffled into their seats. “You know Bokuto-san too, Kageyama? Didn’t he go to a Tokyo school, just like Kuroo?”

“That’s right,” Oikawa chimed in, immediately reaching for the pitcher of Sapporo already on the table - if he was going to spend all night with Kageyama, grown-ass man or not, he would need a little alcohol. “How do you know Kuro-chan, Tobio-chan?”

“The Battle of the Garbage Heap,” Kuroo sighed, wiping a small tear from his eye in nostalgia. “We’ll get Karasuno next year.”

“You must be drunk already, Kuroo-san,” Kageyama said nonchalantly, flipping through the menu. 

“Cheeky!” Kuroo said, his voice gaining the edge of roughness it did when he became riled up. “Have you been taking lesson from Tsukishima? Are all you Karasuno third-years like this?“

“Hey!” Iwaizumi said, banging on the table to break up Kuroo and Kageyama’s sudden death staring match, “You never explained what this…Battle of the Garbage Heap was.”

“School rivalry,” Kageyama said succinctly. “The old coaches of Karasuno and Nekoma had a championship rivalry…Kuroo-san and Sawamura-san wanted to revive it in my first year, so we ended up going on training camps to Tokyo.”

“It was a gift,” Kuroo said magnanimously, laying a hand over his chest. “Hinata and Kenma are good friends, too, so Kageyama and I had to get dragged in sometime.”

“Ah…” Oikawa took a long gulp of his beer, as the implications settled on him, along with an old bitterness. “…so this was a scouting trip.”

Kageyama nodded. “Yes,” he said simply, meeting Oikawa’s stare head-on. If there was anything Oikawa could say that he liked, or maybe even admired about Kageyama, it was his straightforwardness. Even though it had been a huge irritation to him in the past, Kageyama could always be trusted to be honest and unflinching, almost brainlessly so, and it meant that he didn’t sugarcoat or hide. Not like Oikawa did, sometimes. 

“I see,” said Oikawa, and almost as if they had planned it, they both turned their eyes to the sticky, laminated pages of the menu.

Oikawa was a second year in university now. He and Iwaizumi shared a cramped apartment, and he played volleyball for an elite team. He visited his kouhai sometimes when he returned to Miyagi, and he still looked after Takeru in the summers or winters when school was out. But he didn’t pay attention to news about the high school circuit much, not since he left Aobjousai. He’d been a third year. His time was over, and sometimes it felt that he had nothing to show for it. And once he had left for Tokyo, the city, the late nights of intensive homework, hard practice with new teammates, brilliant teammates, somehow it felt that all the insecurity that had plagued him, all the thoughts of inadequacy or inability had somehow been left by the wayside - not because he didn’t still feel them, but because he felt them differently. So far from Miyagi, it didn’t feel like he had much to hide. So far from Miyagi, with new roads to explore, new rhythms and routines to adjust to, the city had swallowed him, occupied him with adjusting, constant reunderstanding. 

But all it took was for Kageyama to show up, his favourite, cute kouhai, always at his heels. Third-year Kageyama wasn’t too different from first-year Kageyama. He was taller, a bit more filled out, his face and demeanor a bit softer, but otherwise there seemed to be no changes. Seeing him chat with Kuroo about another school rivalry, it seemed so strange that his world seemed to expand, when Oikawa, seeing him, felt like his world had shrank back down to what it had been in high school. Seeing him made it seem like things hadn’t changed, like Oikawa hadn’t changed, because here Kageyama was again, making a debut like he had in high school, like he was doing now, bringing with him the same old feelings of uncertainty, of threat, of jealousy. 

Iwaizumi nudged him a little bit. “Hey, it’s your turn to order.” Under the dim lights, Oikawa could still make out the shadows of slight worry that curled around Iwaizumi’s eyes and mouth. Iwaizumi, who had stopped him from hitting Kageyama in middle school, who tried to support Kageyama when he couldn’t, who watched and worried and supported him, even now. 

“Ah - thanks, Iwa-chan! Warm sake, and a gyuutan and negima to start, please! Oh, and an extra tokkuri.”

There had been a time when Oikawa had been envious of Iwaizumi too, when he had looked at his best friend and wondered why he couldn’t be a better person, why hadn’t he been wired to accept his shortcomings and move on, why hadn’t he been wired to forgive and forget.

Oikawa wasn’t in high school anymore. Oikawa wasn’t in middle school anymore.

“Tobio-chan, you’re a third year now,” he said, rapping on the table. “You’ll be graduating soon! Ahhhhh, you’re so uncute now. What happened to the days when you would follow me around and say, ‘Oikawa-senpai, Oikawa-senpai!’” 

“What was it like having this guy as a senpai anyhow?” Kuroo asked none too quietly.

“That guy?! How rude,” Oikawa sniffed, crossing his arms and leaning back as their drink orders arrived. “Anyway, as your former senpai, let me do this for you.” Taking the ochoko, he poured a bit of the warm sake into the extra tokkuri he had requested, sliding it across the table. 

“This little bit should be okay,” Oikawa said, filling his own tokkuri. He raised it, breathing in deep, and lifting his eyes to meet Kageyama’s. “Congratulations on your impending graduation,” he said, loud and clear. 

Kageyama’s eyes widened. His gaze trailed to the tokkuri Oikawa had offered him, and when he grabbed it his movements were sure and decisive.

“Thanks, Oikawa-senpai,” he said, mouth spreading into a wobbly approximation of a smile, and they clinked cups. 

As the hot sake slid down his throat, and the sweetness of the rice spread on his tongue, Oikawa closed his eyes. He supposed this was why sake was sometimes used for purification rituals. 

Kageyama hadn’t choked on his small mouthful, but he’d covered his mouth with a hand and screwed his face up against the sting of the alcohol.

“You actually called me senpai,” Oikawa said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, aren’t you?” Kageyama said, stupidly honest Kageyama. He seemed to be smiling, just a small curl tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I guess I am,” Oikawa said, and clinked their empty glasses together one more time.


End file.
